The Soviet Story DVD

Occasionally there are films of such import to historical understanding that they stand out head over heels over all else...This is one such film. It supports the thesis that, not only was Nazism the heir to Communism, but that its leaders, Hitler, and Lenin, and Stalin, substantially cooperated with one another and learned from one another. Nazism was only different from Communism is that it was ethnically and racially based...whereas Communism was economically and class based. Philosophically, as Goebbels publicly wrote, they were the same, in their employment of repression, and mass murder, and fear to achieve their "idealistic" aims.

The romantic leanings of too many in the West, then as now, always seem to pit early Communism against Nazism....one being good and idealistic, and the other being pure evil. This DVD demonstrates like no other film, that nothing could be further from the truth...for Nazism and Communism, aside from occasional distrust, from the beginning, were bound together with bonds of friendship, affection, and cooperation. That alliance ceased when Hitler broke his written pact with Stalin in their common plans for dividing a post war Europe....as had ALREADY been achieved with their joint invasion of Poland. It's often portrayed that it was Hitler who began WW II. True, as far as it goes...But the full truth is that, in fact, it was both Hitler and Stalin who planned and executed the 1939 attack on Poland.

In addition, this DVD is an excellent antidote in smashing the illusions of all too many North American liberals, and Euro and South American leftists...who still believe that somehow...it was only Stalin who abandoned the "ideals" of Communism....to become one of the two bloodiest murders of the 20th century. These illusions still exist today, in the all too gentle reminder, that Lenin was somehow the "good" communist. In fact, this DVD documents Lenin's class warfare and mass murder of ten million, as the ideological "solution" paving the way for his "ideal" communist state...and the "New Soviet Man". This Hitler directly copied with the "New German Man". Nazism also emulated the concentration camps, which were FIRST established in Lenin's regime....BEFORE Stalin....and served as the Nazi template for the Holocaust....20 years before it occurred.

"The Soviet Story" is a powerful documentary...for it speaks the truth with first person interviews, and weaves a quite convincing review of the Soviet era historic documentation...key parts of which, were smuggled out of today's "new" Russian state apparatus. In fact, it's well to remember Putin's absurd statements about the "fall of the USSR" being one of the "great tragedies" of the twentieth century. This is why this DVD remains timely...as the new Russia still retains significant elements of the old USSR. It remains timely, because the same coterie of delusional western intellectuals still remain fuzzy about the harsh reality of Russian history. As the reviewer for "The Economist" wrote, this film is a powerful antidote to the "sanitization of the past".

For Americans, history will show a period of hesitation about the post war intentions of Stalin. But by 1948, those intentions were abundantly clear to all but the most willful deniers. The key roles of George Kennan, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower defined our initial responses to the USSR. Containment in it's peaceful impulse, and in its defensive impulse, in NATO and MAD, BOTH played their role in the evolution of the leadership of the USSR. The world did avoid a nuclear holocaust. And, as an addendum on the ending of the Cold War, it's well to note that it was the "big tent" Republican, Ronald Reagan, who opposed his own right wing, to negotiate with Micheal Gorbachev. Both, along with Lech Walesa and the Pope, with the big exception of the old Yugoslavia, paved the way to the relatively bloodless denouement to the Cold War.

I can therefore also highly recommend: The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War, by Jim Mann.

For readers of such books as The Black Book of Communism or Death by Government, there is little new material presented here. However, this is the first time I have seen the history of the Soviet genocide so well-presented in a professional documentary. Everything is covered, to name just a few: the forced Ukrainian famine, the NKVD's collaboration with the SS and Stalin's utilization of captured Nazi concentration camps to continue his own slaughter of Soviet undesirables.

One thing that makes documentaries like this so valuable are its on-camera interviews with witnesses to Stalin's atrocities in Ukraine.

The protestations of the Vladimir Putin fan boy reviewers notwithstanding, "The Soviet Story" should be mandatory viewing for the brainwashed masses in America's universities.

From its inception, the story of the Soviet Union was writ in blood. However, the Empire's apologists persistently deny the brutality and extent of Soviet crimes against humanity, most particularly including Soviet cooperation with the Third Reich. As a result, Latvian director Edvins Snore was burned in effigy by Neo-Soviet Russians. It is an ominous badge of honor. Happily, that film that you are not supposed to see, The Soviet Story, is evidently available for sale here.

Soviet Story acts as an effective corrective to the popular notion that the Communist experiment only turned horrific when Stalin ascended to power. The film documents orders mandating mass executions, estimated in the tens of millions, originating with the father of the revolution, Lenin.

Still, it is devilishly difficult to outdo Stalin's sheer capacity for terror. The heart of Soviet Story explores the close ideological similarities and barbaric collusion between the Soviet Socialists of Stalin and the National Socialists of Hitler. There is an eerie sequence juxtaposing thematically similar propaganda posters from both regimes, side-by-side on-screen. Even more damning are the documents Snore uncovers establishing close links between the SS and the Soviet NKVD (the precursor to the KGD), discussing among other issues, the "Jewish Question." Indeed, Soviet Story is most illuminating when discussing the ways in which the more advanced Soviet killing machine served as the inspiration and model for the Holocaust.

Snore has produced a chilling indictment of the Soviet experience with Socialism. He calls some very convincing witnesses, including former dissident Vladimir Bukovsky (essentially a dissident yet again under the neo-Soviet regime), and the eloquent Cambridge historians Norman Davies and George Watson. As evidence, he produces some shocking archival film and documents. However, as the film makes clear, none of those who did (and still do) the Soviet dirty work has ever faced justice for their crimes. All told, Snore has produced a passionate but thoroughly reasoned case against the bloodiest regime of the twentieth century. His only misstep is the periodic use of animated titles, which feel like the commercial bumpers in a History Channel special.

While this is a period of history I consider myself well versed in, Communist oppression was so ruthless and pervasive, Soviet Story was able to catalogue many fresh horrors I was not previously aware of. Probably the scariest aspect of the film is its timeliness, releasing as the Putin's puppet regime increasingly embraces its Stalinist roots. Everybody who wishes to continue thinking themselves well-informed should see this film.